Here's what I do:
curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/creationix/nvm/v0.20.0/install.sh | bash
cd / && . ~/.nvm/nvm.sh && nvm install 0.10.35
. ~/.nvm/nvm.sh && nvm alias default 0.10.35
No Homebrew for this one.
nvm
soon will support io.js, but not at time of posting: https://github.com/creationix/nvm/issues/590
Then install everything else, per-project, with a package.json
and npm install
.